In WAN, all communications between mobiles go through the uplink/downlink channels between mobiles and base stations. In the case that two communicating mobiles are in the vicinity of each other, using direct device to device communication instead of using uplink/downlink channels can enable new services and reduce the load of base station.
While device to device communication offers potential of increasing system capacity by allowing at least some communications to occur without going through an infrastructure element such as a base station, interference management is of concern since the base station may not have control over interference generated by device to device communication. Furthermore, if communications resources are dedicated to device to device communications, an increase in overall system capacity might not be achieved since the device to device communications resources come at the expense of the resources which remain available for infrastructure communications, e.g., wireless terminal to base station communications.
In view of the above discussion it should be appreciated that there is a need for methods and apparatus which allow for at least some communications resources to be used simultaneously for both infrastructure and device to device communications. While not a necessity, it is desirable that at least in some embodiments a base station or other infrastructure element can have some control over at least some simultaneous device to device and device to infrastructure element, e.g., device to base station, communications so that the base station can control and/or limit interference in the system.